


Dream in Black and White

by Alfarinn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8467543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alfarinn/pseuds/Alfarinn
Summary: Shin is seven years old the first time he hears about the graduation exam.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Breaking Benjamin's _Unknown Soldier_

Shin is seven years old the first time he hears about the graduation exam.

He’s sitting on the cut stone floor in an unmarked hallway just to the right of an unmarked door with his head tipped back so that he can follow the cracking dark lines that radiate from the flickering light set high in the opposite wall. Right now, Shin has nothing to do. He finished training a bit early today- he calls it day because he is awake, but there is really no way to tell underground- and the masked instructor let him go with a light hand on the shoulder and the tiny crinkling at the corners of her eyes that Shin has come to associate with approval. He’s clean too, mandatory thirty second wash after training, and his injuries are treated. So Shin is waiting, sitting in the dark, carefully mapping the lines like little black rivers running from the island of light into the dark ocean that is the rest of the hall.  
There is someone in the room beyond the stone at his back, and Shin tilts his head to listen. The voice is deep, gravely. ‘Command’, Shin thinks, and ‘respect’, then ‘Danzo -sama’. So Shin turns himself a little so that he can hear better, because when Danzo-sama is talking you listen.  
“-few more years,” Danzo is saying, “ As comrades. Then a final test.”  
There is someone else in the room, a low murmur that Shin can’t quite make out, but that doesn’t matter.  
“No,” Danzo answers, “One survivor. Only the most loyal and powerful Shinobi will form Konoha’s foundation.”  
There’s more, but Shin doesn’t hear it, just listens to the hum and rumble of voices as his eyes slowly close. By the time a masked Root instructor finds him and takes him, still more than half asleep, back to his cell, Shin barely remembers the overheard conversation.

Not long after, he meets Sai. Only he’s not Sai then, just a boy even shorter than Shin himself with shadow dark eyes and skin as bone white as a Root mask. He has no name and Shin doesn’t give him one. Doesn’t have to: the only people in the world are the Instructor, Danzo-sama, Shin, and now the boy. The boy is quiet, sitting on his cot with knees drawn to his chest. He answers Shin’s questions only with a hesitant nod or shake of his head. Shin doesn’t mind really, they train together, and Shin talks to him, happy to have something listen beside the blank walls of the room that make anything he says seem empty and pointless. The room is less cold with another person in it, but sometimes Shin forgets that the boy is even there.

 

Once, Shin comes back from training to find the boy sprawled on the floor marking pale curving lines with a piece of chalk. Some sort of animal, Shin thinks. Four legs and a curving tail with a snarling face almost like a Root mask.  
“Is that a cat?” Shin asks.  
The boy looks up at him, “I don’t know.” He says, “What’s a cat?”  
But Shin can’t think how to explain cats and so he says instead, “You’d better erase it before the instructor comes back. She won’t like it.” Shin isn’t quite sure how he knows this, it’s just there in the same way that he knows if anyone sees the boy’s drawing, they will punish him, and Shin finds suddenly that he doesn’t want that.  
The boy ducks his head, rubbing at the chalk with one finger, then glances back at Shin.  
“Um,” he says, “But, you- do you like it?”  
Shin looks at the maybe-cat with its strangely swirled body and wide round eyes and says, “Yes.”  
The boy rubs out the rest of his drawing quickly, a with a little smile that turns his normally white cheeks pale pink and makes him look more alive than Shin has ever seen.  
After that, Shin calls the boy ‘Little Brother’, and looks out for him when he can.

When Shin is nine, he finally understands what Danzo meant.

He is curled under a tree with his little brother. This is only supposed to be a short break, an hour or so’s reprieve before they start moving again and they are both supposed to keep watch. But Shin’s little brother is tucked against his side, eyes closed, breath soft and Shin figures, a little defiantly, that he can keep watch well enough for both of them. To keep himself awake, Shin makes maps of the patterns of moonlight and branch shadow spread across the fallen leaves.  
Against his shoulder, his little brother twitches in his sleep, kunai falling from limp fingers. It clinks against a knobby tree root and Shin hears suddenly the echo of words forgotten long ago. ‘Live as comrades’ went Danzo-sama’s voice and Shin mentally supplies ‘as brothers’, ‘for a few more years, a final test, one survivor…’ Shin sits very still, feeling his little brother’s body warm and relaxed beside him and thinks of all the ways a human body is vulnerable. He imagines his hands on his little brother’s throat and is nearly sick. Shin knows that his little brother, who pulls his blows ever so slightly so that all he leaves are bruises, who draws hasty spiraling creatures in pale chalk, who smiles up at Shin like nothing else in the world matters, won’t be able to kill him.  
One survivor. But it won’t happen to them, Shin won’t let it. He is the older brother, he has to make it right. The hand not gripping a kunai tightens its grip on his little brother’s shirt. No matter what it takes, Shin will keep him alive.

The first time the itch in his chest turns into a coughing fit that brings up blood, the only thing Shin can think is maybe he has a chance. So he keeps it a secret.

Shin is twelve when he buys his little brother a sketchbook.

He’s tired of seeing the sadness on his little brother’s face, the reluctance with which he wipes away his pictures: it makes his chest tight and breathing harder than it already is. Besides, his little brother’s drawings are too good to be wrecked like that every time.  
Very carefully, Shin sets the small blank book with its cover of green cloth on the counter beside rice and vegetables.  
“You’re an artist?” the woman behind the counter asks as she adds up his purchases. She has dark, greying hair and fine lines at the corners of her mouth.  
“No,” Shin says, very polite, and just stops his hand from reaching out to snatch the book back. “It’s for my little brother,” he adds when he remembers that she is a civilian and most likely wants conversation instead of silent obedience.  
“Well,” the woman hands him his groceries and the little book neatly wrapped in brown paper. “Your brother is lucky to have you.”  
She waves goodbye as Shin leaves and all he can think is that her short hair makes her look like Danzo. He hurries.

 

Shin meant to give the sketchbook to his little brother as soon as he got back, but he’s late, which means extra work, which means by the time he gets back to the cabin he can hardly walk straight and doesn’t even have the energy to care about eating. Shin wakes up four times that night and buries his face in his pillow so that his little brother won’t hear him coughing.  
They’ve been running all afternoon, throwing kunai and listening to the dull thud as they sink into the trees when Danzo finally calls a halt.  
“Enough for now,” he says. “Return to the cabin.”  
About time. Shin thinks, but says, “Yes, Danzo-sama,” because his mouth is still respectful even if his thoughts gave up on that three years ago.  
His little brother makes dinner that night, and even though Shin could have put the ingredients in with the exact same proportions, it tastes somehow better than his cooking.  
“How long do you think we’ve been here?” his little brother asks, scraping the last of the rice from the bottom of his bowl.  
“Dunno, why?”  
“I was wondering how long we’d stay, you and Danzo-sama are the only people here and I’ve kinda lost track of time. It’s okay though,” he adds after a moment’s pause.  
“That’s because, Shin, I’d stay with you forever if I could.” His little brother smiles, and Shin wonders how much he’s heard and if he knows about the final test too. He remembers the sketchbook and fetches it from where he tucked it behind a jutsu book, then watches with a tired smile of his own as his little brother’s face lights up.  
‘I’ll draw pictures of you and me in here,’ his brother had said, holding the book to his chest as if it were a thing far more precious than cheap paper and cloth binding. ‘It will be a story of us!’ Shin closes his eyes and lets himself pretend that his little brother’s wish could come true.  
If they are drawn in the same book, it’ll be kind of like being together, right?

 

When Shin is thirteen, he rinses the tears and blood from his face in the darkened washroom and hopes the graduation test comes soon. He’s not sure how much longer he can keep this up. 

Shin is fourteen, and as near as the two of them can figure, his little brother is twelve when Danzo deems them fit to graduate.

 

The walls of the canyon hunch, high and menacing all around the two of them and dust stirs in tiny puffs at their feet.. Now that it’s actually happening, Shin’s hands have stopped shaking. I am going to die today, he thinks and isn’t sure if what he feels is sadness or relief. Danzo fades away, air moving to fill the suddenly empty space, his last words, dry and brittle as old leather linger a moment longer, ‘-if you try to leave, you will both be killed.’ Shin will have to make the first move, his little brother just stands there, hands limp at his sides, lips moving to shape quiet, broken words of denial. Shin doesn’t think he can get his little brother to attack him, but surely, surely he will defend himself and then it will be an easy thing to just- step into the path of the kunai. So Shin moves, an easy strike that they have practiced a hundred thousand times and his little brother moves to counter it. At the last instant though, he leaps out of the way, running for the trees growing above the canyon.  
There must be a pretty strong wind to make the trees shiver like this. It’s not doing anything for the heat though and sweat is dripping down between Shin’s shoulder blades and getting in his eyes. The wind is beating against his chest too, hard enough that he can’t draw a breath. It doesn't seem to be bothering his little brother though, the pale smear that Shin is pretty sure is him keeps getting farther away. Or maybe that’s just a trick of the light?  
He misses the next branch.  
Something heavy lands with a thump against the damp leaves. It takes Shin a moment to realize it was him.  
“Brother!”  
He came back, is crouched next to Shin, eyes wide, voice shaking. That won’t work at all. Shin raises a kunai, its sharp edge nearly brushing his brother’s neck. He is going to die here, and then his little brother will have to be strong enough to protect himself. Hands clench somewhere in Shin’s chest and he falls back, coughing, blood running down his chin to spatter, brilliant and red, against the moss. No point in trying to hide it anymore even if he wanted to. His right glove is saturated, ruined.  
“We need to get you help.”  
“No point, nothing anyone can do, when you go back, tell Danzo you finished me.” Shin gasps as soon as he’s no longer choking on his own blood.  
“No, I- I can’t…”  
Shin isn’t done yet though, and continues over his little brother’s protest. “I’ve known- Since we were kids that this would happen, so- I didn’t tell anyone, that way I could- lose to you. But,” his shoulders are shaking and Shin knows that his legs aren’t going to support him again. “I can’t- even do that much.”  
His little brother is talking again. He sounds like he’s about to cry and Shin has to focus hard to make sense of what he’s saying. There is one more thing Shin has to explain.  
“Kill your emotions, little brother,” he says. “Or this world will destroy you. Now go. Go and- and live for both of us.” Shin thinks his arms still work well enough to reach the kunai holster at his side.  
His brother doesn’t move and Shin pushes at him, muscles jerking and uncoordinated but still enough that he falls backward. Out of the corner of his eye, Shin can see the tears running down his little brother’s face.  
“Don’t cry.” His voice is very far away. “I told you- kill your emotions.”  
“I understand,” his little brother says, just as soft. He’s getting to his feet, legs tensing for the leap that will take him away. Shin doesn't want him to go, doesn't want to be alone. He might cry himself if there was anything left but an echoing hollowness beneath his skin.  
Shin’s coughing again, drowning, falling facedown on the moss.  
He remembers the sketchbook, his little brother’s smile, the words ‘I’d stay with you forever if I could…’ and wishes he could have seen the finished story.


End file.
